Lazy Dog Restaurant offers options, portions fit for the whole pack

There are lap dogs. And then there are my dogs, who likely don’t qualify with their 90-pounds-plus Great Pyrenees puppy girth.

Imagine seeing these two small farm animals at Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar. I thought about bringing them to the patio, which is pet-friendly and even offers a dog menu. And then I thought, eating out is my one chance to enjoy food without them shoulder to shoulder with me at the table, eying my fries and waiting, just waiting, to pounce on my kid’s cheeseburger.

Luna and Frank, we hardly missed ye.

But it looked like no one let the dogs out when we checked into Lazy Dog one recent lazy Sunday afternoon. The vast dining room, an homage to the outdoors and Jackson Hole, Wyo. (where chain founder Chris Simms frequently vacations), was filled with planks of wood, stone and other vaguely rustic materials, plus a boisterous post-church dining crew. No four-legged creatures roamed the insulated patio, attractively enhanced with a fire pit, in search of a renegade chip or runneth-over dip.

Their loss. Because the food at Lazy Dog, a chain with locations all over Southern California plus a couple in Nevada (and two others in DFW: Plano and Addison), is actually pretty good.

One look at the menu might give you pause, and a flash of possible heartburn to come, with its run-the-gamut take on American comfort food. Baby-back ribs, pizza, burgers and sandwiches are all available. But many of the dishes sport surprising ingredients. House-made salsa and pickled veggies on nachos? Bison meatloaf? A lamb ragu pasta? “Umami”-sauced fries?

Lazy Dog clearly sourced one heckuva consulting chef to develop its menu, as the dishes are also palatable to the masses — there was a dogged crowd waiting at the hostess stand — likely because everything is in abundance, with absurdly generous portions and cheese. Tremendous amounts of melted cheese.

The chicken-chile verde nachos ($10.50) were ridiculous: a skillet piled eyeballs-high with shredded tomatillo chicken, melted jack and cheddar cheeses, guacamole, salsa, pickled jalapeños, black beans, and Tapatio crema. I was sold at “Tapatio,” one of my favorite hot sauces, which has a healthy amount of spice; here, it was well-tempered by the runny cream.

But the real story was how the skillet proved the ultimate conduit for keeping each ingredient together. No chip was lost in the creation of this dish — each one crispy and an interesting bite, whether it was doused in perfectly hot melted queso or sported more of the “healthful” components (i.e., the guac or salsa). It was no small feat that these nachos tasted so great. I only wished we had more friends at the table with whom to enjoy them.

But we had to press on. The sticky ribs ($17.25) were painted with a honey-plum barbecue sauce that had us yearning more for a douse of hand sanitizer than another rib. Their sweetness was lost on the relatively delicate pork, so I turned my attention to their accompaniment, the umami fries.

Funny — they looked like regular fries, except the thick-cut potatoes were drizzled with another sticky sauce, this one a bit more well-balanced with a nice mix of earthy and sweet. Another good touch was the small mound of coleslaw, topped with black sesame seeds and appealing in a premade-bag-of-Asian-salad kind of way.

And of course there are pizzas. I liked the Black and Bleu ($13.75), inordinately satisfying — perhaps because it was at least 15 inches across. Cajun shredded chicken commingled with shards of bacon, caramelized purple onion, mozzarella, diced tomatoes, green onions and blue cheese. I could hardly discern the latter ingredient, which would have offered more pungency to the, again, sweet entree.

Aside from the no-big-deal gluttony that comes with the territory, you could do far worse than eating at Lazy Dog, with its friendly service and bright, cheery dining room.

Kind of like an eager golden retriever puppy looking for approval — or a semi-annoying Great Pyrenees named Frank — it’s hard to keep this good dog of a restaurant down.

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Lazy Dog Restaurant offers options, portions fit for the whole pack."